Reaction-Induced Strong Metal–Support Interactions between Metals and Inert Boron Nitride Nanosheets

作者：Jinhu Dong, Qiang Fu, Haobo Li, Jianping Xiao, Bing Yang, Bingsen Zhang, Yunxing Bai, Tongyuan Song, Rankun Zhang, Lijun Gao, Jun Cai, Hui Zhang, Zhi Liu, Xinhe Bao · 发表于：Journal of the American Chemical Society · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1021/jacs.0c08139 · 被引用次数：319 · 研究领域：Catalytic Processes in Materials Science、Catalysts for Methane Reforming、Catalysis and Oxidation Reactions

Encapsulation of metal nanocatalysts by support-derived materials is well known as a classical strong metal–support interaction (SMSI) effect that occurs almost exclusively with active oxide supports and often blocks metal-catalyzed surface reactions. In the present work this classical SMSI process has been surprisingly observed between metal nanoparticles, e.g., Ni, Fe, Co, and Ru, and inert hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) nanosheets. We find that weak oxidizing gases such as CO 2 and H 2 O induce the encapsulation of nickel (Ni) nanoparticles by ultrathin boron oxide (BO x ) overlayers derived from the h-BN support (Ni@BO x /h-BN) during the dry reforming of methane (DRM) reaction. In-situ surface characterization and theory calculations reveal that surface B–O and B–OH sites in the formed BO x encapsulation overlayers work synergistically with surface Ni sites to promote the DRM process rather than blocking the surface reactions.